Jullien Gordon on How to Maximize Quality of Life on Your Own Terms

In Chapter 7 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "Why Do You Differentiate Between Cost of Living and Quality of Living?"  Gordon finds quality of living and cost of living are not necessarily positively correlated.  He finds financial freedom does not always create time freedom and chooses to have time freedom as he lives.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why do you differentiate between cost of living versus quality of living?

Jullien Gordon:  Wow!  So I think in regards to the American dream, we bought into this notion that our quality of living increases with our cost of living, that they’re correlative, right?  But I found that knowing what my cost of living is, what is enough for me has actually given me the freedom to actually move more powerfully with any excess income that I have beyond my cost of living. 

My cost of living is a lot of lower than a lot of people yet my quality of living is a lot higher and so we bought into this notion and played this game of income maximization as if financial freedom is actually always gonna give us time freedom and that’s not always true.  If you’re working 80 hours a week for $150,000 a year you’re actually losing out on time freedom and you have to delay your time freedom until the end of life called “retirement.”  I’m actually having my time freedom as I go along life and even Gallop did some research on well-being where they showed that the average retirement age of people who live beyond the age of 95 was 85 years old.  It wasn’t 65 years old, right? 

So this notion of “Oh I want to retire early” most people who want to retire early actually hate what they do and so since our career is such a big chunk of our lives we need to figure out how to make that fulfilling, make it feel like vacation when you’re doing your work because you love it so much and there’s this hidden tax that we have on us when we’re doing things that we hate, psychologically and physically that we don’t acknowledge until our clock stops ticking and so I’m more concerned with quality of life than anything and so to be honest my cost of living though I’m – I don’t have kids and I don’t own a home, my cost of living is about $3000 a month and that’s with my student loans and my quality of living is through the roof and so for me that just breaks this assumption that cost of living and quality of living are directly connected or correlated.

Jullien Gordon on How Self Publishing Helps Personal Brand Marketing

In Chapter 16 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "What has the Self Publishing Process Taught You About Personal Brand Marketing?"  Gordon finds self-publishing books - five to date - an excellent way to distribute products and build his personal brand.  He notes the importance of understanding alternative distribution options and how commitment to a goal opens doors to new opportunities.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What has the self-publishing process taught you about personal brand marketing?

Jullien Gordon:  Especially in this kind of economy and when you look at the music industry and self-publishing industry I think you actually want to demonstrate that you can create value on your own first before you go to a big person, a big player in the game.  So I wasn’t gonna let a publisher or wait for a publisher to give me permission to write my own books.  That would be stupid. That would be ridiculous. 

So I’ve been able to distribute over 10,000 copies of my books on my own and now if I was to approach a publisher I would have a different stake in the negotiation, more leverage in the negotiation but even then some publishers have approached me and the margins that they’re trying to give me off of my own products despite their wide distribution just hasn’t made financial sense and so it’s been very powerful to do something independently.

If I could find the right distribution partner, then I’m open to it because that means more impact, and more spread of these messages and ideas, right?  TED is an example of a distributor, they’re not a distributor but they are creating a platform for me to distribute some of my ideas through TEDx, etcetera.  So I love partnerships but the partnerships have to also make sense.  So I think what attracts people is when you’re already in motion on yourself – on your own.  You’re already making progress on your own, not I’m at a standstill I have this idea, will you come support me.

People like to support things that are already in motion. So when it comes to personal branding and getting your products out there, you want to get things in motion as fast as possible using your own resources and we have hidden resources all around us that we don’t acknowledge.  Your friends, your parent’s friends, your parents, organizations right around the corner from you, if you just really are committed to getting it out there as far as you possibly can on your own, when you tap out that’s when I’ve noticed that other relationships have emerged to expand your ideas even further.

How Small Company CEO Learns to Hand Off Responsibilty - J.T. Allen

In Chapter 7 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, education entrepreneur J.T. Allen answers "What Has Been Most Challenging Handing Off Responsibility to Others?"  He shares stories about how he learns to be less directly involved and hand off responsibility as his company grows to over 100 employees.  He shares examples from growing a call center to hiring a CFO and how he went through the decision process.  J.T. Allen is the CEO and co-founder of myFootpath, a company that provides higher education online resources and call center services to help high school and adult learners choose academic programs in line with career goals.  Before myFootpath, Allen worked in strategy consulting for Ernst & Young.  He earned his BBA and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Why Bootstrap Finance a Startup - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 17 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Informed Your Decision to Bootstrap Your Startup Versus Pursuing Outside Capital?"  He notes not everyone can raise outside capital.  In his case, it was not clear he could raise outside capital for his Shanghai-based daily deals site, Tuanpin. Also, he finds it faster iterating via the bootstrap, focusing less on investors and more on customers.  Lastly, he wonders if it would be beneficial to get involved in the fundraising race around daily deals sites.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Nina Godiwalla on Why Authors are Entrepreneurs

In Chapter 3 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is the Business Model for Being an Author?"  Godiwalla notes the business model is being an entrepreneur, the book is the product, and everything else is the business world.  A Wharton MBA, Godiwalla finds her networking skills very useful making connections that create opportunities to accelerate her career.  She finds value and reward in pursuing an outreach strategy to senior level leaders as well as across her business networks.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is the business model for being an author?

Nina Godiwalla:  The business model is being an entrepreneur and I see the book as your product and everything else is -- it’s the business world.  I used my MBA to the nth degree as part of this—as part of this book process because the reality is, is you get handed this gift of being able to have a product and then you can do nothing with it or you can expect everything to come your way but what I found is my business skills especially networking -- and I don’t even call it networking -- because what I did was I literally found people that I would have loved to meet.  Just people I would have you know like ‘oh that person is so interesting, they’re doing something so fascinating, I want to talk to them’ and I reached out to them and I – these are, some of them were authors, some of them were maybe they got a sense a better sense of the marketing than I did and it’s technically networking but the reality was it was just me reaching out to people I wanted to and the same with the networks.  I was already involved with a lot of networks and it’s basically how did I build deeper relationships with those networks.

So one of the most interesting pieces is the marketing piece, to be able to go out there and basically, you get to talk – I mean I get to talk all the time about things that I’m passionate about so I mean it’s hard to complain about any of it.  It’s just – it's fun and exciting and the other part is, is it’s what you make it, with any entrepreneurial thing.  One of the things I found astounding is you learn in a way I didn’t with a corporate job.  You have somebody standing over you and kind of telling you what you need to do and I don’t – you don’t have that.  I have that with my publisher and I do have a publicist, I have an agent, so they’re there but the reality is, is you get to do what you want to some extent and if you don’t like doing something you procrastinate, you put it off and you don’t do it.  So when you’re doing your own thing you get to do all the stuff you love because the reality is you just put your time behind things that you love.  So for me it’s just it’s been what I’ve made of it and the thing is I love is so much that you know it ended up just doing really well.

How to Set Expectations in a Marriage - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 22 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Has Your Marriage Taught You About Sacrifice and Teamwork?"  She shares how she and her husband blend fiercely independent attitudes with a deep support for one another.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street".  She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What has your marriage taught you about sacrifice and teamwork?

Nina Godiwalla:  Teamwork is important.  I definitely think teamwork is important. My marriage is very independent.  My husband and I, we pretty much do whatever we want whenever we want and I – we're both like incredibly stubborn people, we’re very like fiercely independent at the end of the day there’s nothing he could die without me for, there’s nothing I could die without having him for.  We just love being with each other and doing things together. 

People talk a lot about compromise and things you have to do and I feel like the compromises for us have not been huge at all.  We go out of our way for each other to make things work. The teamwork is, is wanting that other person to succeed in what they want in life at all times.  So we don’t have – one of the things is lifestyle.  We talk about all the time about lifestyle and part of it is, “Hey do we want this—do we want a big house or do we want that apartment down the street,” because right now maybe we both want to start up our own companies or we both want to do this and we’re so flexible.  There’s not – there’s no expectation, there’s no big expectations in our marriage other than I’m looking out for you and you look out for me.  There’s no expectation of you were supposed to bring in this much money this year.  There’s no expectation of you know I spent six hours with our son today so now you need to spend six hours.  It’s hey, what’s going on with you? Can we make this work? And when you have that other person always looking out for you there’s not a lot of threat of you know this is unfair or this didn’t happen and it does happen sometimes with us but we’ll just you know we’ll you know say to the other person like “Hey, I actually don’t think this is working out this way.” 

And when I hear people talk about like the difficulties of marriage or things like that it’s like, “Well, you know I have to cook every night, I have to do this every night.”  And we don’t even have that. Like nobody – if nobody cooks, nobody cooks.  If there’s no food I mean there’s – a lot of times there is no food.  It’s like you get your own food if you want to eat, you want to eat.  If we want to eat together then somebody might make something but there’s just – those expectations are so limited in my marriage that it just works for us.

How Band Develops a Songwriting Creative Process - Conrad Doucette

In Chapter 12 of 21 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, musician and Takka Takka drummer Conrad Doucette answers "How Do You Balance Independence and Teamwork Playing in a Band?"  Doucette notes how this process differs from musician to musician and band to band.  For him, he writes out parts and rhythms.  In his band Takka Takka, songs often begin with a drumbeat.  This individual contribution complements the collective process defining and refining songs in long hours spent inside the studio.  Doucette is the drummer for the Brooklyn-based band Takka Takka.  He also performs with The National, Okkervil River, and Alina Simone.  When not performing, Doucette works as a copywriter, blogger, and digital media producer.  He has worked at Blender, Fuse TV, and Heavy.com.  Doucette earned his BA in History from the University of Michigan.

Stacie Bloom on The Long Term Value of a PhD Investment

In Chapter 6 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Do You Believe is the Greatest Long Term Value of a PhD Investment?" She notes that the training required to get a PhD creates a transferable skill set that allows one to solve problems in creative independent ways. She shares how her PhD in cell biology and post doc in molecular neurobiology proved extremely transferable in her career. Specifically, she used the core skills learned during her PhD to become an editor at Nature Medicine and also applies the skills in her role at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), which she held at the time of this interview.

Stacie Grossman Bloom is the Executive Director at the NYU Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center. Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). She earned her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did a post-doctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University in New York City. She earned her BA in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of Delaware.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What do you believe is the greatest long-term value of a PhD investment?

Stacie Grossman Bloom: I think the greatest long-term value of a PhD investment is that the training required to get a PhD, what it really, I think teaches you more than a specific niche that you are working on research-wise is it teaches you how to solve programs in creative ways, independently. I think it’s a very transferable skill.

I mean my PhD is in cell biology. I did a post doc in molecular neurobiology. That’s what my PhD is in and that’s what I was trained in. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t become an editor at Nature Medicine and understand a much broader range of scientific topics. I would say now, even in my current job, I oversee not only life sciences and biomedicine but also now physical sciences and engineering, which was like a foreign language to me, but I think when you have a PhD you acquire skills that allow you to help figure out other areas. 

How Childhood Passions Lead to Design and Technology Career - Jon Kolko

In Chapter 3 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer and educator Jon Kolko shares the stories behind his childhood interests in art and technology. Early studio art ceramics work pushes Kolko to be creative. As a child, Kolko plays with early Internet computers to call pirate bulletin boards and hack RIT password files. Collectively, these shape Kolko's education, leading him to Carnegie Mellon University and catapulting him into his career. Kolko is the executive director of design strategy at venture accelerator, Thinktiv (www.thinktiv.com). He is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design (www.ac4d.com). Previously, he worked at frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He has authored multiple books on design. Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  Where did your passions for technology and art originate?

Jon Kolko:  My passion for art originated through a ceramics – ceramics mentor of mine named Alec Haislip.  He’s one of the premier potters in Upstate New York. He studied with a number of the folks that were responsible for Bauhaus and things like that and – so I studied wheel thrown ceramics for as long as I can remember. 

I think I started when I was 5 or 6 and that was like a thing to do and then it became a release and then it became – now, it is a, ‘Wow!  I wish I had more time on Saturdays to spend in my studio.’  Very much art driven.  It’s functional ceramics but it’s also, let’s make it the way I want to make it.  There’s no constraints.  There’s no clients.  There’s no deadlines. 

On the technology side I’ve spent a great deal of time playing with the early foundations of the internet and I was using dial out remote BBSes on remote voxes at RIT when I was 7 or 8 years old to call you know pirate bulletin boards and stuff like that.  Like, we got a cease and desist, my dad actually still has this letter, we have cease and desist from one of RIT’s heads of technology ‘cause we’ve – we’ve hacked their password file back then.  It was like you run crackerjack overnight and it brute force hits it with anything, what I am gonna do with a bunch of accounts to RIT’s vox but I do remember you know getting my first Magnavox 28612 and going to town on it, also the Apple 2c and all that good stuff so I know both of those – were – were pretty prevalent in my life growing up and then it sounds like it was well designed but it was in fact very arbitrary that I ended up going to Carnegie Mellon. 

I remember I got a brochure to attend pre-college there for design, I thought it was cool.  I went - I went to undergrad there, I continued to do my Masters there and years later, you do some research and you’re like, ‘Wow!  That’s like the epicenter of everything technology leading up into what is now normal culture.’  So, you know I think I got super lucky with all of those things, sort of leading to what is now my – my job, my career, and my passions.

What Makes a Near-Peer Mentoring Relationship Valuable - Lauren Serota

In Chapter 5 of 18 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, interaction designer and researcher Lauren Serota shares how mentor Jon Kolko encouraged her independence and built her self-confidence. While studying at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Serota forges a mentoring relationship her professor, Kolko. Only a few years older than Serota, Kolko provides presence and encouragement as a mentor to help Serota gain confidence in her work and become more independent in her aspiration. Serota is an interaction designer at frog design - http://frogdesign.com - and a professor at the Austin Center for Design - http://ac4d.com . She earned her bachelors degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

What Role Does Objectivity Play in Experience Design - Lauren Serota

In Chapter 18 of 18 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, interaction designer and researcher Lauren Serota shares what role objectivity plays in designing experiences. She notes her aim is less to be objective and more to consider the experience from the user's perspective. It is more about putting herself in the shoes of the various research subjects who will interact with the product or experience. Serota is an interaction designer at frog design - http://frogdesign.com - and a professor at the Austin Center for Design - http://ac4d.com . She earned her bachelors degree in industrial design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Fabian Pfortmüller on How to Rethink Rules of the Startup Game

In Chapter 14 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, community builder and entrepreneur Fabian Pfortmüller shares how his experience starting multiple businesses has compared and contrasted with his initial expectations.  He learns how his atypical career approach translates into creating a nontraditional startup.  Location independence, especially encouraging his Holstee and Sandbox teams to work abroad and take trips, becomes a centerpiece in creating company culture.  Pfortmüller is co-founder of Sandbox Network (www.sandbox-network.com).  He also co-founded an innovation think tank, Incubaker (www.incubaker.com), and is part of the group's first spin-off, Holstee (www.holstee.com), an apparel brand for people who would like to wear their passion.  Pfortmüller graduated from Columbia University and its School of General Studies. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How is life as an entrepreneur different than you imagined it would be?

Fabian Pfortmüller: My feeling was that entrepreneurs have a lot of holidays [laughs] yeah for some reason I thought that, I thought being your own boss means you can take holidays whenever, turned out not to be true… but having said that you know I believe that it is possible to make that happen and I feel also we talked before about standard careers and doing the atypical way, it seems also a little bit as if there is the standard entrepreneur model, like working extremely hard and kind of not taking holidays and after five, six years you have your exit or not but it’s really crazy a lot.

I believe you can shape that and what we do at Holstee for example is be very dedicated to say that we want to you know spend maybe several months a year working from somewhere else and be very open to go and take breaks if that’s, if that’s what it is for us, we say if you don’t feel like coming to the office, don’t come, either don’t work or kind of work from a café or somewhere else because in the end we didn’t become entrepreneurs to kind of end up in the same situation where someone else will kind of tell us what to do and the same thing goes for Sandbox that we – our team has moved for two weeks in Berlin, work two weeks in Berlin, now they were two weeks in London and really moving a little bit around, that is possible… but it’s not maybe how I originally imagined it to be.

Fabian Pfortmüller on How an Entrepreneur Creates Rules for Success

In Chapter 9 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, community builder and entrepreneur Fabian Pfortmüller shares how he is learning to define success and failure. He finds failure is about delivering mediocre results or doing something irrelevant or mismatched to what someone wants. This frames his view of success, which is less about quantifiable success and more about surrounding yourself with those you love. Pfortmüller is co-founder of Sandbox Network (www.sandbox-network.com). He also co-founded an innovation think tank, Incubaker (www.incubaker.com), and is part of the group's first spin-off, Holstee (www.holstee.com), an apparel brand for people who would like to wear their passion. Pfortmüller graduated from Columbia University and its School of General Studies.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How do you define and measure success in what you do?

Fabian Pfortmüller: I really believe that as I get older I start to better understand what success really means to me. Success used to be very easy quantifiable in terms of numbers, you know? And that was the first measurement of success but as I start to gain a little bit of experience step by step I would say I get a better grasp of what success means and success obviously has to do with motivation, what really motivates you in the end and for me, right now it is really about being my own boss, being able to shape my own environment.

Being able to say ‘Okay, I designed my life and how I run my life’ and then be surrounded and be with the people I really love that’s really what counts and if what you create actually is valuable and it’s being used and [laughs] and is in that way successful that is great, but right now that for me is even secondary.

Already having that environment and living like that is worthwhile in itself and I believe when it comes to success on a project level there’s two things which I can say what is failure for me, maybe that kind of as the contrast to success is delivering something that is mediocre and delivering something that people don’t want and don’t need. And as a consequence success is delivering something that people really need and want and not just doing a good product but doing really the coolest product and the best product out there, whatever it is, I believe that’s success.

Fabian Pfortmüller on How to Rethink Career and Find Fulfilling Work

In Chapter 6 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, community builder and entrepreneur Fabian Pfortmüller shares why he challenges traditional career planning thinking.  He feels careers are built upon societal norms and ways of thinking.  He offers instead non-linear options built on modular experiences and a stronger embrace of uncertainty and the unknown.  Pfortmüller finds this approach more fulfilling and in line with his passions and interests.  Pfortmüller is co-founder of Sandbox Network (www.sandbox-network.com).  He also co-founded an innovation think tank, Incubaker (www.incubaker.com), and is part of the group's first spin-off, Holstee (www.holstee.com), an apparel brand for people who would like to wear their passion.  Pfortmüller graduated from Columbia University and its School of General Studies. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: Why do you encourage others to investigate nontraditional careers?

Fabian Pfortmüller: I really believe in nontraditional careers because I don’t believe in careers. And already saying ‘Do a nontraditional career’ means do not the thing that you should be doing or the normal thing and I believe that’s totally wrong. You know the career that is laid out for you and has the several modules where you start at school and you go to university and you have a job and you have a better job and you go from there… I’m not sure if that’s what life’s about.

I encourage myself to really think hard, is that something that I actually want because career the way we know it and I think that’s very prominent here in the US is not defined by yourself, it’s defined by society. And I’m not sure if I want to have my life for the next thirty, forty years laid out by society values, I’d rather have them laid out by my own values. And I can see – I can give you an example that I believe being at Columbia I’m surrounded by lots of really smart kids who – they have the talents the skills to do anything in the world.

So, my question is why should they do exactly that, why should they go and go into classical ibanking, and consulting careers and legal and medical if they have the skills for everything? And I believe it has a lot to do with stability. Career has to do with stability, it’s kind of a widely accepted way of leading your life and I just, I’m willing to take the instability of not knowing exactly what’s coming next and looking at it in modular ways of ‘Well you do first this and then maybe this and then this and then maybe something else afterwards’ and it might not be linear of just going up, it might be up and down and sideways and so on, I think that’s more fulfilling for me personally.

How to Pitch a Book and Become an Author - Cathy Erway

In Chapter 3 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with Erik Michielsen, author and food writer Cathy Erway shares advice on pitching a book. She notes alternative publishing platforms, from blogging and self-publishing, are great ways to build momentum and sharpen focus. She shares how her book pitch evolved over the course of one year and how this was received by both her literary agent and publisher. Erway is the author of "The Art of Eating In: How I learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove." She writes two blogs, "Not Eating Out in New York" (http://www.noteatingoutinny.com ) and "Lunch at Six Point" (http://www.lunchatsixpoint.com ). Erway earned her B.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College.

Why Courage Matters in Corporate Market Entry Strategy - Alan McNab

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, customer advocacy marketing executive Alan McNab what attributes help large companies launch new market strategies. McNab cites courage - a willingness to take risk - and building an underlying culture to motivate behavior. McNab cites Absolut Vodka as a standout risk taker whose market entry campaign went against the grain. He notes Cisco, where he worked early in his career, as a standout company that instills courageous culture in its merger and acquisition minded corporate growth mission. McNab holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked in various technology marketing roles at Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Motorola, and is now Vice President, Customer Advocacy at NCR based in Dublin.

How to Be a Change Agent By Thinking and Acting Independently - Maurizio de Franciscis

In Chapter 13 of 19 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, education entrepreneur and Global Campus (www.globalcampus.com) founder Maurizio de Franciscis shares how he decided what mattered to him and channeled his energy to achieve it. As a change agent, de Franciscis tries to make change happen by looking past outsider expectations and associated anxiety inducing cultural pressures. Instead, he views life as a game with a clear endpoint and starts playing to actualize his ambition with Global Campus. Before founding Global Campus, de Franciscis worked at General Electric. He graduated from Universita degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza - and earned his MBA from INSEAD.

What Are Myths and Realities in a Reporter and Editor Relationship - Yoav Gonen

Yoav Gonen returns to Capture Your Flag to build upon his 2009 interview with a 2010 conversation with host Erik Michielsen. In Chapter 12 of 17, Gonen, a New York Post education reporter, shares his perspective on myths versus realities in the newspaper reporter and editor relationship. Journalism school taught Gonen to expect a hands-on relationship between the editor and journalist. In reality, Gonen learned editors function more like movie directors, managing many moving parts and budgeting time and attention accordingly. As a result, autonomy, independence, and, especially, trust are central to the editor and reporter relationship. Before starting his New York City newspaper reporting career, Gonen earned his BA in English from the University of Michigan and his Masters in Journalism from New York University.